NOCTURAMA starts with a thrilling lesson in pure cinema. For fifteen minutes we follow ten different characters as they silently navigate Paris. We know nothing about them. There is no dialogue. Yet it is gripping.
Bonnello takes his first wrong turn when the bombs go off. The explosions aren't nearly big enough.
The film devolves into mush as soon as the characters end up in the department store. All of the tension that Bonnello built up in the first part of the movie evaporates and the story becomes a heavy-handed critique of capitalism. I hate directors who try to push a political agenda. Bonnello did the same thing in his whorehouse movie. I don't think I'll be seeing another of his movies.
From an ideological point of view, NOCTURAMA swims in bad faith. Today's terrorism does not resemble this. It is much less glamorous and much less innocent. It is not perpetrated by people like Bonnello's good- looking United Colors of Benetton cast. It is perpetrated by schizophrenics and religious freaks. By distorting reality in this way, he robs his story of the power that only fidelity to life could confer on it.
At least we get to see each of these repulsive young fools shot in the end. I think Bonnello wants us to identify with them. "Whoa...this is like...a metaphor for our society...they give us all these luxury consumer goods...but we lose our souls, man...and when we attempt to rebel...we finally understand that we're powerless against the faceless pigs with truncheons and laser scopes!" He ends the film with a pathetic appeal to sentimentality, by having a young black boy (probably supposed to represent Syrian immigrants) beg the SWAT team to help him. All I can say is that I cheered inside when they put a bullet in his heart. Bonnello, you chose propaganda over reality and for that you are an enemy of art.
Bonnello takes his first wrong turn when the bombs go off. The explosions aren't nearly big enough.
The film devolves into mush as soon as the characters end up in the department store. All of the tension that Bonnello built up in the first part of the movie evaporates and the story becomes a heavy-handed critique of capitalism. I hate directors who try to push a political agenda. Bonnello did the same thing in his whorehouse movie. I don't think I'll be seeing another of his movies.
From an ideological point of view, NOCTURAMA swims in bad faith. Today's terrorism does not resemble this. It is much less glamorous and much less innocent. It is not perpetrated by people like Bonnello's good- looking United Colors of Benetton cast. It is perpetrated by schizophrenics and religious freaks. By distorting reality in this way, he robs his story of the power that only fidelity to life could confer on it.
At least we get to see each of these repulsive young fools shot in the end. I think Bonnello wants us to identify with them. "Whoa...this is like...a metaphor for our society...they give us all these luxury consumer goods...but we lose our souls, man...and when we attempt to rebel...we finally understand that we're powerless against the faceless pigs with truncheons and laser scopes!" He ends the film with a pathetic appeal to sentimentality, by having a young black boy (probably supposed to represent Syrian immigrants) beg the SWAT team to help him. All I can say is that I cheered inside when they put a bullet in his heart. Bonnello, you chose propaganda over reality and for that you are an enemy of art.